Need to save files on a busted USB stick

I have been handed a usb memory stick which a student saved all their current projects with no back ups. When she pulled it out of her computer only the casing came away. When she put it back into the casing the computer would no longer read it.

I've manaed to have a look at the insides and there doesn't seem to be any loose conections and I'm evan getting a red light from the stick, but nothing is appearing on the computer. By squeezing the sides with my thumb and finger I can get a unrecognised usb device message.

Any help with recovering the files would be greatly apreciated.
Cheers

Hmm.. perhaps one of the surface mount’s came off.. It could be a weak solder joint, try applying light pressure to the memory chip & controller (square and rectangle chips) and then plug in the drive. As LookinAround said, you may have trouble finding someone local to Australia that specializes in USB Flash drives at a reasonable price.

Barring the all mighty “static electricity” (haven't seen it yet, but it "could" damage the NAND chip) I’ve found NAND memory to be very robust, when I first started reverse engineering flash drives (my own drives, not customers drives) I did many stupid things.. Heating the chip to 800F, soldering it in backwards, etc. In all cases the chip still worked.. Out of the ~250 flash drives I’ve worked on I’ve never gotten a NAND memory chip that I couldn’t read, that’s not to say data doesn’t become “damaged” similar to bad sectors in specific blocks. I’m off topic.

Unfortunately the other people that I work with have deemed the usb unsalvageable working with a school's budget. Plus I think we have been short-circuiting the whole thing in a hope to get any response from it. I'm just going to tell the student that she needs to be more careful with her data, it will probably teacher a good lesson in time for VCE.